[Image of graffiti drawn by Syrian youth South of Damascus. Image by Dimashqi Lens via flickr]

[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on Syria and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the Syria Page Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each week's roundup to syria@jadaliyya.com by Monday night of every week.]

Idlib Residents Split Over Support for Al-Qaida-Linked Militants (10 August, 2017) Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham’s military dominance in Idlib has not been translated into total popular support. Today, the province is split between those who accept the extremist group and those who are pushing back against its rise to prominence.

Syria’s Assad has become an icon of the far right in America (13 August, 2017) Assad’s emergence as a popular hero for the right appears to have followed a series of tweets in March by the former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, in which he lavished praise on the Syrian president, describing him as an “amazing leader” — and more.

We Must Ask Refugees What They Feel About Returning to Syria (11 August, 2017) The founder of the consultancy behind the annual Arab Youth Survey explains why they did their first-ever poll of Syrian refugees and what the young refugees surveyed in Lebanon and Jordan said about the conflict and their attitudes toward going home.

UN says nearly 50,000 stranded at unsafe Jordan-Syria border (14 August, 2017) Nearly 50,000 people, most of them women and children, are stranded at Syria’s southern border with Jordan, an increasingly unsafe area where air strikes were reported in the last few days, the United Nations said Monday.

The battle for Raqqa – in pictures (14 August, 2017) The final phase of the campaign to reclaim Islamic State’s de facto capital was launched two months ago by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – a confederation dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Arab auxiliary militia – and backed by a US-led coalition.

الرقة وحرب المياهFeras Hanoush highlights the impacts of water insecurity on residents of Raqqa city and the surrounding countryside and how their inability to access drinking water forced them to rely on wells or untreated water drawn directly from the Balikh river.

بيان من عائلة باسل خرطبيل صفدي الى الرأي العام The family of Bassel Khartabil writes in their statement: "We, as a family, who’s been affected declare to the world that we stand for all of the detainees and we are terrified of the thought that another syrian family is having to go through what we suffered."

أرقام رسمية سورية "صادمة" لعدد ضحايا الحرب! The head of forensic medicine department at the Faculty of Medicine at University of Damascus says that more than 400 thousands victims have been documented in Syrian hospitals.